Insects have a profound impact upon agriculture and human health throughout the world. Damage and destruction due to insect activity represents, on average, a loss of 10-20% of agricultural crops, stored agricultural products, timber and livestock worldwide. In addition, quarantines imposed to control the spread of insect pests severely impinge on world trade and the import and export of agricultural products. Many of the most significant and devastating infectious diseases are transmitted to man by blood-feeding insects such as mosquitoes, flies and ticks. Fatalities associated with insect-borne disease far exceed one million annually, with associated illnesses surpassing 300 million (see, e.g., WHO Weekly Epidemiological Record, 1999, 74:265-270).
Presently, the spread and activity of agricultural product pests is chiefly controlled by the widespread application of potent, broad-spectrum chemical pesticides over agricultural fields, greenhouses, and storage facilities. Pests posing a danger to human health are targeted with the widespread spraying of insecticides in or near residential areas.
The use of conventional pesticides, however, is associated with significant hazards to the environment, human health, and non-renewable natural resources. As a result, governments throughout the world are placing increasingly severe restrictions and bans on the use of chemical pesticides. Moreover, insects develop resistance to pesticides after prolonged use, necessitating the spraying of increased levels of pesticide, or the development of new, more potent, pesticide formulations.
Thus while chemical insecticides are designed to kill insects, their non-selective effects on human health, the environment and other animal species make them damaging and controversial. As a result, there is a critical need to develop safe and effective tools to manage populations of insects that are a threat to food, resources and human health. One potential approach is to exploit knowledge of insect behavior and recent exciting advances in the molecular neurobiology of insect olfaction to develop novel strategies for insect control.